Adam Eve and Elizabeth

By Ed Staskus

   Adam was a worm, at least he was until the day he became two worms. What happened was that Monk Kennedy, when he was digging up his stolen jewels where he had hidden them at the back of somebody else’s barn at Malpeque Bay, sliced Adam in half with his surplus Canadian Army General Entrenchment shovel. It was commonly used to dig latrines, but worked for treasure hunting, too. He didn’t know he was doing it when he did it. Adam never knew what hit him. When it happened, even though he didn’t have ribs to speak of, the two new parts of him became Eve and Elizabeth. It was a Two-for-One Special.

   It didn’t happen often. What usually happened was both halves died, or the head end, near where most of the vital organs were, regenerated a tail. When it did happen it was miraculous, as though God had ordained it. No worm complained when it came about. Many men believe they are akin to gods, or will one day become so. No worm believed that. They had good reason. They were the ones who finished off men in the end, whether they were gods, or not.

   Adam took a deep breath, breathing through his skin, and tried to make the best of it. His breathing was shallow getting over the shock, even though he didn’t have lungs. Adam’s biological make-up was a cylindrical tube-in-a-tube. There are more than  6,000 species of earthworms. He  was a Canadian Nightcrawler. His face looked the same as his rear end. He didn’t have arms or legs. All worms have both male and female private parts. He was a kind of rain worm. He thanked his lucky stars he wasn’t an angleworm, who are destined from birth to become fishing bait. 

   Fishermen on the island stuck worms on a hook, under a bobber, or on a weighted rig. Some anglers balled them up on a hook to improve their odds. Others threaded them to make them look more natural. It amounted to brutality against worms. Adam wanted to know why there wasn’t some kind of  International Criminal Court to deal with the horror.

   Times could get tough for worms in an instant. Everybody remarked about the good luck of the early bird but never the bad luck of the early worm. The bird got breakfast. The worm became breakfast. Almost half of every robin’s diet was made up of worms. Adam’s one consolation was that God gave every bird its due but at least didn’t throw it down the bird’s beak. His other consolation was that worms were going to inherit the earth. The unbroken circle was worm to frog, frog to snake, snake to pig, pig to man, and all men and women, sooner or later, back to worms.

   Eve and Lizzie wanted to thank Monk, but the words wouldn’t come. By the time they thought of something to say, Monk was gone on his Havoc motorcycle, the stolen jewels hidden in his saddlebags. He had lifted them from a store in the Charlottetown Court Mall where he had swapped cubic zirconia for diamonds. He was a sleight of hand man. The worms looked around for him, wanting to wave goodbye, except they didn’t have eyes to see or hands to wave. They wiggled and began to burrow back into the ground. It was what they did best. They squinted as they worked, the morning light hurting their eyes.

   They didn’t have eyes, but they could sense light, especially at their front end. They might become paralyzed if exposed to light for too long, so they stayed in the shade more often than not. It was bad enough that rats, toads, and birds were always eating them. They couldn’t eat all of them, however. There were up to a million of them in every acre of land. By Adam’s calculations there were about one trillion four hundred billion worms in the ground on Prince Edward Island, plus one more now that he had been split into two.

   They were good for the island’s well-being. They supported plant growth in multiple ways, building good soil structure, assisting in water capture, and churning organic matter so that nutrients became more available to plants. The National Science Foundation said they were responsible for 7% of global grain production.

   They tunneled into soil and brought subsoil closer to the surface, mixing it with topsoil. Their slime contained nitrogen, which is an essential nutrient for plants. The sticky slime helped to hold clusters of soil particles together in a form called aggregate. It was hard work, straining their five hearts, but since they breathed through their skin, they never ran out of breath. They were always eating and digested what amounted to most of their body weight every day,

   After Eve and Lizzie joined the worm world Adam told them, from the creepy-crawly afterworld, that they had joined a world that was older than dinosaurs. The beasts ruled around 230 million years ago, at least before a giant asteroid put them out of commission. Worms went back 600 million years. An asteroid might have killed all the big dinosaurs way back when, but the little worms shrugged it off and kept on churning.

   Whenever they went underground they liked going six feet deep, creating permanent tunnels in which to shelter. They had heard some adventurous worms went exploring two miles deep. No worms ever slept, it wasn’t something they did, especially not the ones trying to get to the center of the earth.

   “Did you know the famous scientist Charles Darwin spent almost 40 years studying us?” Eve asked Lizzie.

   “No, I didn’t know that. Why did he spend so many years studying us? I mean, we are as simple as radishes.”

   “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have those lowly organized creatures, the worms,” Charles Darwin said.

   “Lowly? That’s an insult,” Lizzie sniffed. If Charles Darwin had still been alive, she might have sent her South African cousins after him, even though they lived 20,000 kilometers away. She had never seen or talked to any of them, but had heard they could grow to be as long as 10 feet tip to toe. He would have to take the “lowly” crack back or the big squeeze would be coming his way. 

   Whenever anybody on Prince Edward island had complained to Adam about there being too many worms, he always told them, “Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.”

   Worms weren’t the fastest creatures on the island. They were just about the slowest moving things from Souris in the east to Tignish in the west. They had to wiggle like go-go dancers to get anywhere, but unlike go-go dancers they weren’t high-energy. They could go as far as 150 feet a day if they kept it up all day, although no worm could keep it up all day. They were always stopping to eat and poop. They stopped for rest and recreation when they weren’t eating or pooping. When Eve and Lizzie looked around, poking up out of the ground, they saw a storm coming. It looked like a whopper.

   Rain hitting the ground usually made worms think moles were after them. When that happened they made a beeline for the surface. But they were near enough to the surface of the ground already, so they weren’t worried about any moles. When soil got soaked was when it was express time for worms. A soaking rain enabled them to move quickly and gracefully over the ground. Eve and Lizzie slithered to the crest of the croplands sloping up from the barn. From there they had a good view. They looked down on Malpeque Bay, where ocean waves were hurling and breaking themselves to pieces on the shore. The sky had gone dark in the middle of the day.

   “I hope the man who made us what we are doesn’t get soaked to the skin riding on his motorcycle in this weather,” Eve said. She felt like they owed him a debt of gratitude.

   “Some men ride in the rain, others just get wet,” Lizzie said, somewhat mysteriously.

   “Rain is always wet, but who am I to judge?” Eve said.

   “I wonder what kind of man the man who created us is?” Lizzie asked.

   “I think he is going to be a hangdog kind of man soon enough,” Eve said as the rain got colder and harder. A lightning bolt split the sky, followed by thunder. “He’s got his sparkle stones, sure, but are they worth being out in this drencher? I don’t think you can eat them, so what are they good for?  Better to find someplace dark and cozy that has got plenty of coffee grounds.” All worms loved coffee grounds. It put pep into their accordion-like step.

   “Amen to that, sister.”

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland  http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East  http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal  http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

Summer, 1989. North Rustico, a small town on Prince Edward Island. Crime money on the move gone missing. A double cross and muscle from Montreal. One RCMP constable working the back roads stands in the way.

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CV9MRG55

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication